Friday, November 11, 2011

I received the following from a veteran and thought it needed to be passed along:

As I look at the Veteran Day messages I have sent out over the past few years, I realize that the words may have changed some but the message has been the same. With that said, this may be somewhat redundant for the vast majority of you. For those new faces among us, I hope you get the sense that Veterans Day is an important day to all of us. It’s a day set aside to honor all the brave young Americans who have answered our Nation’s call and served in the military. I challenge each of you to seek out a Veteran sometime today and thank them for their service. We are truly blessed to live in this great nation and enjoy the freedoms that, all too many times, are taken for granted. These freedoms have not come without sacrifice. We owe a debt of gratitude to those American men and women who have put on that military uniform and stood in harm’s way on our behalf. I am particularly attracted to those veterans that Tom Brokaw calls the “Greatest Generation”. I have been blessed to have accompanied two different flights of Knoxville area World War II Veterans to Washington DC as a part of a program called HonorAir Knoxville. HonorAir Knoxville’s mission is to take veterans to our nation’s Capital to tour various military memorials. I see these men and women as true American heroes but they see themselves, not as heroes, but rather as ordinary people who were called on to do extraordinary things. To my fellow veterans, I say thank you. I just hope you are as proud as I to have served our country and to have played a part in protecting the rights and freedoms we hold so dear. If you know or are related to a veteran, whether they be veterans of World War II or just back from a recent deployment, find the time today to call or visit them and thank them for their service.